


Panthera uncia

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Winter Mornings - HeAteUs Survival Plan [5]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cruelty, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Empath Abuse, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Games, Orgasm Delay, references to cannibalism, references to murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 06:57:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2260215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I had to seek out a procurer, for one of this particular size," Hannibal intones against Will's hair, tucking his head fondly against him through every little pulse of distress that carries between them. He catches Will's jaw in his hand again, breathing soft against his cheek as he kisses there. "It is difficult - increasingly so - to find one that has survived such conditions and threats for so long. A mirror," he adds warmly, "to your particularly unlikely survival."</i>
</p><p>Hannibal buys Will a gift. Part of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1847926">Odalisque and Concupiscent</a> verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Panthera uncia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [9_of_Clubs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/gifts).



> From a conversation with [9_of_Clubs](http://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs) aka [the-winnowing-wind](http://the-winnowing-wind.tumblr.com) whose marvelous mind came up with this depraved idea.

Where he had gotten it is something Will doesn’t want to think about.

“It’s -”

It’s laughable, in a way, the idea that Will has seen people torn apart in Hannibal’s home, his room, _their_ room, and that he hasn’t been moved to nausea, to terror there. And yet seeing this, splayed out, most likely smooth and warm to touch, makes Will shiver and turn aside.

He had concluded long ago, when he had first started researching the concept and mindset of psychopaths and sociopaths, hoping to explain himself away in the depths of a book, that he did not have the signs that would suggest he was one. If anything, his levels of empathy were too high, not lacking. And he had never once harmed an animal.

Perhaps it’s that, Will thinks, feeling warm dark eyes on him even as he refuses to turn to them, that makes him so uncomfortable. An endangered animal harmed and killed for no other reason than aesthetics.

He doesn’t try to explain away how boys here die for the very same thing. To be Hannibal’s beautiful dishes, to be made a presentation of.

It’s different, he tells himself, and most days, he can believe it.

“It looks expensive,” he manages.

"It is," Hannibal assures him, unmoving still as he stands opposite Will, attention drawn onto him entirely. "Trade limitations being what they are, one must go off the grid - so to speak - in order to acquire one."

As though discussing overpriced caviar. As though discussing a particular brand of clothing that is difficult to import.

Will swallows. "Trade limitations."

Hannibal all but purrs his pleasure, a step closer to Will, and then another.

"An unfortunate side effect of the conservatory Red List."

He could nearly laugh for it, if it didn't snarl his stomach into nausea. "Unfortunate?" Will asks, just resisting the urge - to laugh, to be sick - eyes darting towards Hannibal as the older man surrounds him from behind. Arm around his middle, the other looped around his neck, and mouth pressed to his temple to tilt Will's head aside, towards the floor again.

"There are less than seven thousand remaining," Hannibal murmurs, and splays his fingers across Will's throat, up to grasp his jaw, kissing down the opposite side of his face. "Less than half of those of age to reproduce."

He hums, nuzzling against Will's cheek to feel the boy nearly shudder beneath him.

"I wish only to surround myself with beautiful, rare things. And so this, little wolf. For you."

A soft noise, like a whimper, and Will closes his eyes against this, to it. He knows, far enough where he can stifle his empathy and drown it, that the animal was not killed specifically for him, that it was not because of him that it had been mercilessly culled. And yet Hannibal had gone out of his way to acquire it, going through ‘trade limitations’, perhaps specifically asking for this product.

Not a product.

An animal.

Once living now… his.

As most things were that came into contact with Hannibal Lecter.

Most, but not Will.

“I don’t know what to do with something so lavish,” he whispers, words forced steady, eyes still closed.

"Enjoy it," Hannibal responds readily, and his touch stills just long enough to convey a displeasure at Will's closed eyes. He fights it, hesitates just a moment more, and finally opens them again.

Spread beneath them across the floor is white, thick fur. Rosettes of grey ring across it, tightening down the narrowed limbs with wide paws, down the tail that seems too thick, too long to be real. Used for balance, when climbing precarious cliff faces thick with ice, to carry this snow leopard, once, not now, but once across mountains and valleys untouched by any men but those who hunted it down for its pelt.

Will nearly chokes on the images, appearing far too fast to stop them.

"I had to seek out a procurer, for one of this particular size," Hannibal intones against Will's hair, tucking his head fondly against him through every little pulse of distress that carries between them. He catches Will's jaw in his hand again, breathing soft against his cheek as he kisses there. "It is difficult - increasingly so - to find one that has survived such conditions and threats for so long. A mirror," he adds warmly, "to your particularly unlikely survival."

Will swallows thickly and sets his jaw, feeling the fingers tighten against it further. If he holds him there longer it will bruise. He will wear the marks of Hannibal’s passive displeasure for days before they fade.

Perhaps it had a family, maybe it had cubs to feed, had gone hunting that morning and never returned. Will doesn’t think of the little things, kitten-like, warm, tiny, so few of them and those babies now having no chance at life because their mother, their protector, was -

“And will you skin me and splay me on the floor once my survival has reached its end?” he asks, and regrets it immediately. He can’t help it, the nausea and displeasure lifting to a peak and making Will tremble. He tries to struggle free, for the moment just a gentle squirming, though he is held fast.

“How am I to enjoy it?” he breathes.

For a long and curious moment, Will knows, Hannibal considers his suggestion. Plays through the various difficulties that such an endeavor might present, dismantling Will in such a way that the pale and scarred skin in which Will feels so suddenly uncomfortable might not be damaged, but rather displayed. He hums, thoughtful, but doesn’t respond to the accusation.

Instead he braces his arm more firmly around Will’s middle, and rests his body against him in such a way that it bends Will, finally bringing him, slowly, in a graceful movement to the floor.

“By touching it,” Hannibal responds, drawing Will into his lap. Will has no choice but to move with him, and makes a soft sound as Hannibal finally releases his grip on the boy’s jaw. “Feel how soft it is beneath your fingers, how dense the fur to protect from the cold, how thick the tail that once would have carried it over cliff faces of the Himalayas.”

He does not force Will’s hand, does not even touch it, but merely whispers against his throat.

“Revel in what once drove this creature to hunt as we do, and know that still it has fallen for our pleasure.”

"Yours, for your pleasure," Will manages, twisting in a gentle squirm against the arm pinning him hard to the unforgiving form behind him. And just for a moment, Hannibal stills, that terrifying predatory lack of motion that sends all of Will’s instincts screaming.

"Do you not like your gift?" he murmurs, and the words carry such frightening promise, such dangerous things. Will trembles, thighs spread the way he's held against Hannibal, up in his lap, kneeling on the floor himself for balance.

Will shakes his head.

"It was so beautiful," he says softly, finally reaching out to splay his fingers just above the fur, unwilling to press further to bury his fingers within it, to feel the phantom motions of the strong muscles beneath, when it had been alive, when it had breathed and run and hunted and _lived_.

"It had lived, Hannibal," Will breathes. A hum in response.

"Everything lives," he agrees, drawing lips against Will's cheek, breathing in the nervousness and fear sharp from the boy's hair. It makes him smile. "Before it no longer does."

Fingers splay over Will’s scar, through his shirt, as though to remind him.

"Touch it, Will."

Will resists, a moment more, two, before Hannibal leans over him once more, unsettles Will’s balance enough for his fingers to slip against the fur and press to the pelt beneath. The sound Will makes sends a shiver through Hannibal, delighted, pleased by the tension in his boy, he rolls his hips against Will’s ass, and the boy whimpers and arches back. 

With his hands in it, now, Will can’t let go, and he curls his fingers through it, feeling it heat up his skin, feeling the smoothness, the softness of it. He thinks again of the life lost to bring him this and nearly sobs with it.

"Hannibal -"

Hannibal hums a curious note but no question comes, and so the plea of his name is disregarded. There is no use in masking his desires now, with the boy brought to hands and knees and Hannibal's hardness pressed firmly against him, and so he leans forward more. Nearly a crawl, Hannibal mounted over him, he moves Will further onto the pelt, nuzzled into his hair, hands spreading across his belly.

The helpless sound Will makes tears from a secret place in him, the tiny territory that gives sanctuary to the little voice that only breaks from him when he has been left alone, black basement walls closing fast around him.

Hannibal's favorite place in the world, and one so rarely open to him, these sanctum doors to the heart of his boy.

The shudder that curls through him is savage.

"She is still beautiful, and we honor that," Hannibal murmurs against the back of Will's neck, languid kisses following the press of his words. "Perhaps she too looked on her prey and felt triumphant in bringing it low, little knowing that she too was hunted. How easy it is to forget when one is so isolated, when the world you know is yours alone.”

Fingers work free Will’s fly and slip beneath the waistband of his jeans, tugging them lower.

“Do you think that she considered the things she hunted? Their lives ended abruptly beneath teeth and claws.”

A sharp pull exposes Will to him, and forces his pants down to his trembling thighs. Will’s fingers spread, shaking, through the rich fur beneath them, curl against the pristine white marked only with elegant loops and spots of grey. He closes his eyes, and for a moment imagines he feels a pulse beneath him, a pull and shift of taut muscle, a wild heart thundering, as his own does now.

“How much thought do you yield your prey, by compare?”

Will considers, a distant thing, clinging to Hannibal's words as he once did when his life was spilling between his fingers and only words to kept him from slipping with it. He trembles as Hannibal runs his palm over his back, bends it obediently into an arch, curls his shoulders and ducks his head when Hannibal works his shirt free over them.

Could he be like something so regal? Not condescending to think of the prey but merely taking it, as though by right?

This creature had hunted to feed, itself, its young, perhaps uncaring for its prey but certainly not wasteful.

Will knows he kills for pleasure.

The thought suddenly seems more upsetting than before.

Will spreads his legs further, pushes back, insistent, a demand for another distraction.

Hannibal makes a sound, thoughtful, to fill the space that Will does not fill with an answer, and tugs the boy's pants from his legs to toss them aside. Warm hands curl around narrow hips to drag them further back, accepting the gentle tremor in him without attempt to still it.

"Tell me, Will," murmurs Hannibal softly as he leans across Will's back again. "Is this wasteful?" His hand smooths the curls back from Will's face, slides further still to the back of his neck. "Is it cruel?"

Hannibal's hand tightens before Will can answer, just enough force to move him, and he presses Will into a bow, across where his hands press into the warm fur, now his cheek alongside. He is not rough in his movements, no claiming by force or aggression, almost gentle as he kisses along Will’s back and reaches back to stroke himself, sighing.

"Tell me - how does it make you feel?"

Will wonders if the pulse he feels is his own or the phantom memory of another. One arm curls close to his body, the other stretches free, out in front of him, fingers splayed. 

He shivers.

"It's so rare."

"Some would argue the same for people," comes the warm reply. “Spread wider for me."

Will does.

"It was killed without reason or purpose."

"As you kill," Hannibal ghosts his lips over Will’s opening and relishes the whimper it draws. “As, some may think, does God."

"We are not God," Will groans, bending his back further, a deeper arch, rewarded with a slow rub against his cock with the heel of Hannibal’s hand.

"You kill indiscriminately, Will - messy, disorganized little boy. What is the purpose of your kills? Are they not wasteful? Are they not cruel?"

Will gasps, closes his eyes tight and burrows against the soft, comforting fur. He can't argue, can't explain his own choices away. He kills for the pleasure of taking a life, of outliving another human being. He kills because he loves it.

It makes him feel alive.

Another moan, deeper, and Will is almost presenting himself with his desperate need for this, an unexpected lesson, a favourite, welcome teaching.

The appreciation that Hannibal derives from the sight is tangible, in the way he grasps Will firmly and spreads him wider still. He pushes forward, presses him harder against the pelt, to see his fingers stretch and curl and stretch again, a feline motion that draws another murmured sound of admiration, one beautiful, rare predator spread and splayed across the exquisite fur of another.

"Perhaps she, too, took pleasure in her kills," Hannibal considers, mouth closing against Will's sensitive skin again, to suck, to lick. "Lapped the blood from her paws and thrilled at the way her pulse raced when the life drained from them."

Hannibal moans against him, the vibrations uncurling a keening whine from Will before Hannibal swipes his tongue again and sits back, to turn two fingers inside of him and spread them wide.

"And then she ate them," he intones, the slip of a blade in his words as he widens Will, works him deeply, steadily, adds another finger. "Consumed her kill to leave none to waste. Honored it, in this way, though she cared little for how it lived, there are scarce enough moments such as those to pursue them for pleasure alone."

A breath, soft, in contrast to the firm spread of fingers now to tug Will wider yet, in contrast to the weak sound of pain.

"Selfish boy," Hannibal sighs, observing through heavy-lidded eyes Will's cheek pressed against the priceless pelt. "Spoiled."

Will trembles, face flushed now with both arousal and humiliation, his own flaws taught to him on the back of a rare protected creature. He will not strive to earn another such lesson. Will not see another animal such as this killed for his selfishness.

"I will be better," he whimpers, no longer a plea but a promise now, feels Hannibal press hot kisses to the curve of his ass, the base of his spine, a trust that he will be.

Then the fingers are gone, and Will steels himself, lips still parting on a low barely voiced groan as Hannibal pushes into him.

He knows this intimately, knows Hannibal’s dimensions, his girth and weight and heat. Will turns his hips just a little and feels hot hands hold him still. The stretch continues, deep, slow, and Will is breathless, shaking by the end of it. Writhing on the furs, beneath Hannibal’s hands, for his pleasure.

He knows this will be a lesson in endurance to drive the message home, knows he will be sobbing, shaking, pleading by the end and anticipates it with relish. 

“You will,” Hannibal assures him, breathless now that he’s deep inside of him, remains there until he feels Will’s little twists and shudders slow and settle, adjust to seat Hannibal inside of him. A familiar warmth, tight and hot and twitching, and Hannibal sighs hard as he draws out, and brings himself deep inside again - brutal in the languor of it, in the depth he reaches that pushes out a rough gasp from Will.

One hand holding Will’s hips tight to stop him from trying to move, to make it faster, shallower, to adjust Hannibal in any way other than how Hannibal wishes to be inside of him, the other palms up the aquiline bend in Will’s back, somehow shifting deeper still inside of him to run the backs of his fingers along his boy’s cheek, pressed in presentation to the pelt beneath him.

“Appreciate and honor what is left when a life is taken from the world to satisfy us,” intones the older man. “Know that there are questions, and places, and other beings left devoid of answer because of our hands.”

Rough fingers find Will’s parted lips and part them further, press between them to feel Will’s mouth part around Hannibal as Will’s body has already.

“Whether you care for them or not - and you should not, in truth, spare sentiment for prey - you must know, Will, the sacrifice they still have provided for you. Pleasure, yes, but it is this act which sustains us,” Hannibal breathes, another smoldering roll of hips into him.

Will moans against the fingers in his mouth, tongues against the tips, sucks, gently draws teeth over the pads. The stretch is exquisite, made all the harder to adjust by how slow it is, how deliberately claiming.

The fingers slip free from his lips, touch them gently to paint them slick with spit, then moved away.

Will chokes on a whine when they wrap around his cock and stroke.

"Don't." A familiar reminder, and Will nearly sobs for it. 

He is tormented to breathless moans, trembling flesh and weak knees and still the speed persists, gives Will nothing but that slow burn of pleasure that coils down his spine. 

Then one thrust, just one, quick and harsh and _just there_ and Will shudders, the sound drawn from him a desperate hitched thing.

"Again, please again," he gasps.

“No.”

Hannibal does not shorten his movements again, makes them as long as he can stand, an agonizing lassitude that starts in his shoulders and carries down his spine through his hips, just enough of a hard push at the final curl of movement to shove another little moan from him.

His hand, however, the turn of his wrist and the tight squeeze of his fingers, speeds, thumb gliding across the slickness gathered at the tip, pressing against it. A cruel contrast to the thickness buried almost unmoving inside of him.

“Do not, vicious boy,” Hannibal warns him again, sharply, as he feels the pulse and twitch of Will’s cock in his hand, sees the desperate splay of fingers out through fur, clutching, reminded of the creature spread beneath him, unable to remove his mind from the one mounted above.

“You think yourself a rare beauty but do not doubt that you, too, are endangered. Consume your kill and leave no traces for the hunters to find you.”

A hard swallow, now, as Hannibal burns these words into Will with his fingers, with the teeth that sink bracing against Will’s pale back to hold him still when he tries to shift. His legacy, this boy, his gift to the world to be taught and shaped and molded, who may some day be his mirror.

“Do you understand?” Gasping, roughly now, as Hannibal’s lips press damp, biting to Will’s skin. “Do you see?”

Will nods, shakes his head, nods again. The whine drawn from him curls his toes, sends his body to near-liquid when Hannibal finally moves again, brutal depth, a deliberate twist when he’s buried deep to pull all air from the boy in his hands.

"I understand," he sobs. And he means it.

Beneath him the fur does not grow matted, despite his sweaty palms slipping across it, despite his body trembling above it on the cusp of orgasm.

"Please, please Hannibal, please."

A warning growl and Will hisses, teeth gritted as he takes it, this slow, deep fucking that feels so good it almost hurts him.

It had never occurred to him to consider himself endangered, to consider himself that _special_ that way, yet he knows that to Hannibal he is the only, the perfect.

He swallows, a thick, wet sound, and trembles.

Hannibal eases deep again, and in groaning softly his own release, unspiralled in shuddering waves, ducks his head against Will's back, sweating in exertion from forcing himself to slow, to not simply rut the boy into the fur, and his pleasure pulling from far deeper for his restraint.

"Good boy," he murmurs, another lazy kiss across his back. "Now you may. Cum for me," Hannibal allows, and draws his hand up to cup the head of Will's twitching cock.

Somewhere between desire for control and desire not to dirty the fine fur so warm beneath them, he insists softly, "Cum in my hand."

Will jerks, gasps, fingers stretching in a full splay before curling, as he feels his own release ride through him, the heat of it, the sheer bone-deep pleasure.

He isn't sure if he sobs a curse or Hannibal's name against the fur but it hardly matters, he is dizzy with it, muscles sore and tense and slowly numbing back from their position when he’s let go to press to the fur properly.

He cries out when Hannibal pulls free, and immediately misses the contact.

When Hannibal returns, hands clean and done up to perfection again, Will is dozing, curled small and naked on the most expensive rug in the world, the epitome of decadence.

He directs his eyes up to Hannibal, then slowly away, with a blink. 

Hannibal watches him, the steady breath that hitches, once, a little faster before Will forces it back to slow with a swallow. There is guilt in it, in the avoidance of eye contact, in the twist to pull his body tighter on itself, a lesson hard-learned that still aches in him well beyond the physical wear and tear his body took for it.

"You mourn for her," Hannibal murmurs, eyes following the curves of his pale body, nearly so white as the fur that warms it, entirely too beautiful for Hannibal to stand and observe and so he crouches beside him. "You feel responsible."

Will swallows, shakes his head but it's there, in the stubborn set of his jaw, the burden this lesson has laid on him, the toll it's taking even now. Hannibal hums, reaches and twines Will's hair through his fingers, smoothing it back from his face.

"The procurer is an acquaintance of mine," Hannibal begins, quieting when Will shudders.

"Hannibal, don't - just fucking, don't -"

There is no strike now, no harshness, just those soft, repetitive strokes across his hair, continuing.

"She is a conservationist, in employ of a research facility. Products of poaching often fall into their jurisdiction, once confiscated, but they have little use for them. Importation difficulties aside, it seemed an opportunity that does not present itself often, rather than one to simply let go to waste."

Another curl of fingers, tucking Will's hair behind his ear.

"The cost beyond easing the way through customs, was, per her request, a substantial donation to their facility, readily made for something of such unequivocal beauty as this."

Will allows the words to penetrate, feels them soothe his heart a little. He has grown, in the recent months, to feel that certain timbre of Hannibal’s voice when he’s being earnest. He hears no lies here.

He turns his head against the fur, nuzzles its warmth and welcome, forces the images of her cubs to fade, of her hunts and strength and power.

His hand slips free, out towards Hannibal to grasp his shirt and pull him closer, turning to lie on his back against the fur as Hannibal moves on top of him as Will directs.

"I very much like my gift,” he tells him softly, stretching languidly against the expensive, endangered skin. Then he smiles, slow, and arches up to kiss him.

The kiss is returned, Hannibal’s weight settling heavy over him, to feel the press of Will’s body against him, the fur soft beneath them both. A few more exchanged softly, a hand tucking into the small of Will’s back to support him as he curves and bends, and finally Hannibal draws back just enough to regard him, to see the light returned to his eyes, amusement in his own.

“Do you truly think me so heartless?” he asks, entirely charmed that Will would assume him capable of such monstrosity as this.

Will sighs, takes in the expression, the amusement, the odd pride within the man at the thought, and finds his answer simple.

"Yes,” he whispers. And he wonders why such warmth spreads through him, as well, when Hannibal genuinely grins at the word.


End file.
